How to Delete Pages in Atlassian Confluence Workspace

Atlassian Confluence is a powerful collaboration tool that allows teams to create, organize, and discuss work together. As your Confluence site grows with more pages and content, you may occasionally need to remove pages that are outdated, irrelevant, or incorrectly created.

Deleting pages in Confluence is easy, but there are a few things you should know first to avoid accidentally removing important content. In this comprehensive guide, we will cover everything you need to know about deleting Confluence pages, including:

• How page deletion works in Confluence
• Permissions required to delete pages
• Finding and previewing pages before deletion
• Deleting a single page
• Deleting page hierarchies
• Deleting draft (unpublished) pages
• Restoring deleted pages from the trash
• Permanently purging deleted pages

How Page Deletion Works in Confluence

When you delete a page in Confluence, it is not immediately erased. Instead, the page is moved to the space’s trash, where it can be restored if needed. Pages in the trash are only permanently deleted if a Confluence admin chooses to manually purge the trash.

Here are some key facts about page deletion in Confluence:

• Deleting sends pages to the trash unless they are unpublished drafts
• Pages in the trash can be restored by space admins
• The trash is manually purged by Confluence admins to permanently delete pages
• Deleted pages maintain their original URLs and incoming links

Permissions Required to Delete Confluence Pages

To delete pages in a Confluence space, users must have the Delete Page permission for that space. Users with the Delete Own Pages permission can only remove pages they have created themselves.

Space admins automatically have permission to delete any pages within their space. Confluence admins can delete pages in all spaces.

Finding and Previewing Pages Before Deletion

Before deleting a page, you may want to:

• Find the page in your space to preview its contents and position in the page hierarchy
• Check page information like incoming links and child pages that may be impacted
• Confirm the page is the one you intend to delete

Here are some tips for locating pages:

• Use the space sidebar to browse pages
• Search for the page by title or other keywords
• View deleted pages in the space trash

Once you have navigated to the page, choose the Page Information option to see helpful details, like:

• Child pages that will also be deleted
• Incoming links that will break when deleting the page

Page information can help you avoid unintended consequences from removing pages.

Deleting a Single Confluence Page

To delete an individual page:

1. Navigate to the page you want to delete
2. Click the More Options menu in the top right corner of the page
3. Select Delete from the dropdown menu
4. Confirm you want to delete the page

The page will be removed from the space and placed in the trash, where it can still be restored if needed.

Deleting Confluence Page Hierarchies

If you need to remove an entire hierarchy of parent and child pages, Confluence allows you to delete the page tree with a single action:

To delete a page hierarchy:

1. Go to the top-level parent page
2. Click More Options and select Delete to open the deletion dialog
3. Check the box for Also delete child pages
4. Confirm the deletion

All child pages under the parent will also be deleted and moved to the trash. If any child pages cannot be deleted due to restrictions, they will simply be moved to the top-level in the page tree.

Deleting Unpublished Draft Pages

For Confluence pages that have never been officially published, deleting them is permanent. Unpublished drafts skip the trash when removed and cannot be recovered.

Follow the same steps to delete a published page, and unpublished drafts will be immediately erased from Confluence upon confirmation.

Restoring Deleted Pages from the Trash

If you need to retrieve a page that has been deleted, space admins can restore pages from the space trash:

1. Go to Space Tools > Content Tools in the space administration
2. Click on the Trash tab
3. Locate the deleted page and click Restore

The page will be returned to the root level of the space page hierarchy.

Permanently Purging Deleted Confluence Pages

To permanently erase pages from Confluence instead of keeping them in the trash, a Confluence admin must manually purge the trash to completely remove deleted pages.

1. A Confluence admin goes to Space Tools > Content Tools
2. They select the number of days for pages to remain in the trash before automatic purging
3. All pages older than the set # of days will be permanently deleted from Confluence on the next trash purge

By manually purging the trash, organizations can ensure outdated, irrelevant, and unneeded content does not accumulate endlessly in Confluence.

Conclusion

Deleting unnecessary Confluence pages keeps your workspace clean and organized. By sending pages to the trash first, you have an opportunity to recover content that was accidentally removed. Just be sure anyone deleting pages has the proper permissions before removing content.

With this comprehensive guide, you now understand how to safely delete pages in Confluence, whether one page at a time or entire page hierarchies. You also know how to restore recently deleted content from the trash if needed. Follow these best practices for page removal, and you can confidently eliminate Confluence content that no longer serves your organization.